Margaret Irene Lavinia Renaud (née Jones)

April 1, 1934 – June 30, 2004.

Margaret Renaud passed away on June 30th in the Valley Regional Hospital, Kentville Nova Scotia. She is survived by her children Karen Elizabeth (son-in-law Jerry Sullivan) and Joseph Ian (daughter-in-law Sheila Selby), grandchildren Danny & Angela Sullivan, Napoleon Renaud, Alexander Martin-Bale, David Martin and Angela Chaput (née Martin), great-grandchildren Jamie-Lynn Davey, Seth and Caila Chaput and a multitude of cherished nieces, nephews and close friends new and old. Predeceased by her husband Joseph Earl Renaud, father Courtney Fallis Jones, Mother Amy Jones (née Smith), brother Gilbert Jones and sister Leola Pefhany (née Jones).

Donations to the Canadian Cancer Society may be made through Serenity Funeral Specialists in Port Williams Nova Scotia. Margaret suggested that people could also complete their organ donation cards as a gesture of remembrance.

The family would like to extend special thanks to Drs. Harrigan and Joseph and the caring staff of the medical wing at the Valley Regional Hospital. Special thanks to all the friends that she made only recently and who treated and cared for her as a life-long family member.

A memorial service was held at St. James Anglican Church in Kentville Nova Scotia on July 4, 2004.

1953 - Margaret Renaud (née Jones)

By Joe Renaud - I searched for some nice, tidy words with which to describe my mother. In-dominant-able, courageous, strict, loving, sharing, selfless, caring, organized; all these words came to mind but they all failed to sum the woman up. I think remarkable does it best.

This remarkable woman came into the world on April 1st, 1934. Yes that’s right – straight out of the gate my mom had to learn to share her life with April fool’s day. And share she did. I knew very little of my mother’s family other than the stories that she would tell us. Distance, limited means and the state of travel in that era meant that we grew up without the benefit of direct contact with her relatives from “down east”. I did gather up a few tidbits from those days.

Her sister Leola would require regular insulin injections. Mom would sit beside her and get an injection of a placebo so that she could “share”. She and her brother Gilbert fought constantly as kids. Somehow this developed into a warm and loving relationship as adults.

She had many stories that centered around her father. I only met my grandfather a couple of times but I believe that “character” would be an excellent one word description for him. She told me how she would be towed behind the sailboat (a sort of crude kind of body surfing) and because the boat would not be going quickly enough she would be pulled below the waves, how she would climb to the top of the mast to hammer in nails to discourage the seagulls from landing there (she would do this while at sea with the mast sweeping great arcs in the swells), how her father pulled her out of a jelly fish school when they were swimming, how they almost crashed on the rocks when their engine failed in rough weather and were saved by a passing fishing boat, how she held the chisel for her father as he punched a hole in a concrete wall with a chisel and a 20 lb sledge hammer (he said that his previous career as a butcher would ensure that he would not miss). I think you are beginning to get the picture. My mother was lucky just to survive long enough to grow up and leave home. As well as incidental dangers though there was a lot of love between them. Mom would tell me about working with her father on many projects including the family car. How he would get her to reach in with her small arm where he could not. My mother’s technical skill and inquisitive nature without a doubt grew out of the relationship she had with her father. There is one final story about her and her father but I will leave that to the end.

My Mom was in the military from 1952 - 1959 as a fighter control operator (FCO). Her postings included Lac. St. Denis, Que., Beaverbank N.S. and Foymount Ontario. During those years she made friends that she would remember for life and with whom she would re-unite many years later. She also met and married my father during that time. She spent many years on isolated bases in Northern Ontario and British Columbia (we of course never felt isolated – this was our home). She retrained as an accounting clerk after we were old enough to fend for ourselves after school (this is where I learned to cook) and began a new career. Following the death of my father in 1999 she retired and later moved here to the Annapolis valley in

My mother’s life is full of small miracles and her move her to the Annapolis valley is definitely one of the larger of them. She had always talked of moving to the Annapolis valley someday but - really – she did not know a soul here. What family she had was located nearer to Halifax. Her friends from her first career were spread across the country. I had just moved to Quebec City and my sister was in Alberta. But move she did. She and Aunt Joyce went house hunting and somehow settled on her lovely new home in here Centreville. She immediately made friends. Her next door neighbours (the MacDonald’s) adopted her as a surrogate family member. She has only been her three years (somehow it seems much longer), the last year battling an illness that she knew she could not defeat and yet somehow she managed to put down roots that most people can only dream of. I will always be thankful to this community for taking my mother in and making her final years some of the most wonderful that she has ever had in her long and sometimes difficult life.

I promised you all one last story about my mother and her father. My grandfather suffered a major heart attack when he was quite a young man. It was suspected that this was a complication associated with his battle with Polio years earlier. Borrowed time was an expression that my grandfather was intimately acquainted with. Some time during all this my grandfather spoke to my mother and told her not to worry about him should he fall ill and die (which he seemed to imply they could anticipate). He said that when he died he would be going to a far better place and that they should all be at peace with his passing and have faith once he was placed into God’s hands. This same message my mother passed on to us when we were children and I share it with all of you here today. Do not be sad for her passing. Her suffering is over and she is God’s hands now.